One Girl's Notions About Life… (un)censored and funky-fresh

Blooming Where I am Planted

*I am going to throw out a little preface to this blog post… I received an email this morning that included this “Go light off a firecracker. Kick up dust. Boldly, bravely, beautifully break the rules of how you’re “supposed” to live or talk or eat or walk and dare to be the most breath-taking example of Desiree’ the world has ever seen.” With that, I knew it was time to write this post… It’s raw and it’s soul-bearing. My hope is that you be kind and respectful with the words I am going to share because it’s sensitive and it’s personal… But in the effort to live a life open and honest and transparent, it’s time to share this little snippet with the World I live in. I hope there is something you can take or learn from this to use in your own life.

Bloom where you are planted.

I used to always hate that phrase… For so many reasons! First, I’m not a big flowery chick, I mean if you want to buy me roses, awesome buy me a dozen and make sure they are red. Anything other than that, save your moolah and take me to a Tigers game instead… So blooming wasn’t something I was really interested in. It seemed so flowery and cute. To me this phrase meant you suck, you settled and you’re stuck here so you might as well make the best of it.

To understand my logic, you first have to understand my history. For as long as I remember the idea of living in a big city, specifically New York City, has captivated my heart. I remember being a little girl and telling my Ma, “One day I am going to stand in Times Square and take a picture, then I will know I made it.” In college I studied abroad in Rome, Italy for a semester and it was an amazing five months that taught me so much about myself… It was in this time that the glorious awe of living in a big city was validated. It’s the hustle and bustle, the constant motion, the energy, the dreams. It made the idea of NYC all the more enticing. In September of 2011 I finally made the trip there with my Big Brother. In that week the City that Never Sleeps signed a lease on my soul. I mean after all, Jay-Z did say “If you can make it here you can make it anywhere” NYC was the ultimate goal. If I could get to NYC and build a life for myself, to me it meant I reached my goals. I made it. I succeeded at life. Gimme the damn medal… Or at least the Mercedes with the sunroof!

Getting on that plane to come back to Michigan was one of the hardest things I have ever done. To me it meant failure. To me it meant I didn’t reach my goals. To me it meant I was a loser who was building a life in the same city I grew up in. Don’t get me wrong, people do this all the time and for them it is ok… For me, I wanted different. I was the girl who wouldn’t put her hometown or current town on her Facebook page because they were both the same, and it was a constant reminder of my failure! I considered the city I lived to be the Armpit of the Free World… And no one likes armpits… They’re smelly and gross!

To really understand the predicament my life was in you need to understand a teeny-tiny (glaringly huge) fact. I am married to (an incredibly forgiving, unconditionally loving, loyal, trust-worthy, God-filled) Man-with-a-capital-M, who has no plans to leave the city we both grew up in. (Now is the appropriate time to face-palm… Reality-check, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)

For the sake of time, I am going to fast-forward thru the past two years… Those you can read about in my book. I’ll change names to protect the innocent, but I can assure you, there is a book on the horizon… There have been tears, mistakes, prayers, half-hearted fixes, more tears, more mistakes, more prayers.

Today I sit here having gone through the storm. Assessing the damage, picking up the debris and repairing the foundations. Today I sit here… and I see little buds bursting in a crazy array of color. Little tiny buds of hope… Blooming… Where I have been planted… Imagine that.

One of these buds bloomed in full living-color yesterday… I became a staff writer for a Dallas Cowboys Fan Site The Landry Hat, and yesterday my first post published! Check it out HERE. It’s insane, terrifying and wildly exciting… Bloom where you are planted does not mean you failed. In fact, it just may mean you have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams!